Author: cprindia

Watch the full video (above) of the discussion on ‘Making Sense of the December 11 Results’ featuring Gilles Verniers and Neelanjan Sircar, moderated by Yamini Aiyar, as part of the CPR-TCPD (Trivedi Centre for Political Data, Ashoka University) Dialogues on Indian Politics.

The state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telengana and Mizoram are the last electoral tests for before the 2019 general elections. What do these results say about the state of strength of both national parties? How does the Congress-TDP alliance prefigure future opposition alignment? What do we learn about the verdict returned by voters in the three Hindi belt states governed by the BJP? These were some of the questions that two elections experts – Neelanjan Sircar and Gilles Verniers – addressed by diving into the outcomes’ data.

Gilles Verniers is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ashoka University and Co-Director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data.

Neelanjan Sircar is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ashoka University and Visiting Senior Fellow at CPR.

Yamini Aiyar is President and Chief Executive at CPR.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.

About the CPR-TCPD Dialogues

This was the sixth event in the CPR-TCPD Dialogues on Indian Politics series, launched in a partnership between Centre for Policy Research and Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TPCD) at Ashoka University. This is a monthly event that brings together academicians, policy and political practitioners, and civil society actors to grapple with important social and political issues in India. It provides a forum for intellectually rigorous, non-partisan commentary to strengthen public discourse on politics in India. In these polarised times, debates on politics in India have tended to be increasingly noisy, blurring the lines between critical engagement and partisan endorsement. This dialogue series is an effort to carve out a space for critical, nuanced engagement to understand the changing dynamics of Indian political parties, the impact of new and emerging social movements and the use of new instruments of mobilisation in our polity.

The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Programme trains and supports a network of community paralegals or grassroots legal advocates who work with communities affected by pollution, water contamination and other environmental challenges. They use the legal empowerment approach to make communities aware of laws and regulations that can help secure much needed remedies for these problems that often arise out of non-compliance or violation of environmental regulations. As part of their work, the community paralegals write about their cases to create public awareness on the use of law outside of courts as well as engage the readers in these issues.

This is an updated collection of published stories written by paralegals and their team members working in coastal Gujarat, Northern Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Keonjhar, Odisha. These are a combination of case stories and opinion pieces on issues of industrial non-compliance that have adversely affected many local communities. Each article tries to highlight the gap between the law on paper and its implementation in reality, while putting forth the conviction that putting law in the hands of ordinary people can shift the balance of power in support of justice.

The full report can be accessed here.

Across the world, poor communities bear a disproportionate burden of the environmental cost of development. Harmful projects such as polluting industrial units, municipal disposal sites or mining projects are usually situated close to poor neighbourhoods. These communities grapple on a daily basis with environmental impacts which exposes them to toxic contamination, adversely affect their livelihoods and impose restrictions on their access to common resources and mobility. These environmental impacts are often an outcome of years of gross violation or non-compliance of environmental regulation governing these projects.

The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program has developed a strong network of grassroots legal advocates or community paralegals across four states in India, who work directly with these affected communities. They help the communities to understand relevant laws and environmental regulations and assist them to build evidence about the impacts, approach relevant institutions and seek practical remedies for their problems.

As part of their work, the community paralegals write about their experiences to create public awareness on the use of law outside of courts as well as engage the readers in these issues. This is a collection of published stories written by paralegals working in coastal Gujarat, North Karnataka and Keonjhar, Odisha. Each story chronicles the focussed efforts and creative strategies undertaken by the paralegals and affected communities to close the legal enforcement gap and seek remedies for environmental impacts.

Click here to access the full publication by CPR- Namati Environmental Justice Program.

By Zorawar Daulet Singh

The importance of India-China relations in India’s overall foreign policy cannot be overstated. Not only is China’s rise changing Asia’s geopolitical landscape and the global balance of power, its involvement in South Asia in recent years has augmented its position from being India’s largest neighbour to an engaged great power across the subcontinent. Unlike in the Cold War era, when a backward China had been confined to a limited role in South Asia’s security and economy, four decades of reform and opening up to the world have equipped the country with the financial wealth, industrial strength and military capacities to pursue, should it choose to do so, an ambitious role in South Asia.

Thus, India’s China policy choices are profoundly consequential for the Indian government. It entails opportunities as well as risks with implications across a gamut of issues such as India’s global status and effectiveness in international institutions, geopolitical security and economic transformation. The persistence of an unresolved border dispute in this context only reinforces the importance of crafting a sensible and effective China policy. As India’s foreign secretary told members of the Lok Sabha in February 2018, ‘We cannot see the relationship with China the way we perhaps saw it thirty years ago, or even 15 years ago … both countries share the belief that this relationship is slated to become one of the defining relationships of this century, certainly in our region…’¹ One of the areas that India’s China policy needs to focus on is the neighbourhood because it is the arena where India-China competition and mistrust have tended to be most acute in recent years. If not managed sensibly, it could undermine India’s interests and regional position, along with unravelling the prospects for cooperation on other important fronts.

The Policy Challenge 

For the past decade, India and China have been working according to rival geopolitical visions. Although China has been a direct neighbour of South Asia and India since 1950, it is only in the past decade that Chinese policymakers have reformulated their regional policy to pursue more sustained political and economic relationships with several states in the subcontinent and the Indian Ocean littoral. Following Xi Jinping’s foreign policy guidelines of 2013 and 2014, China has adopted a policy aimed at enhancing the development options of its neighbours as well as promoting new lines of communication or corridors with its southwestern periphery. Much of this impetus has been provided by the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) – a grand connectivity plan that envisions a network of states economically linked to China through a variety of commercial-financial relationships and industrial projects. South Asia is one of five regions or subregions identified as areas to expand China’s geoeconomic footprint.

Since the 1990s, India too has contemplated ways to reconnect with its South Asian neighbours and inculcate a spirit of integration and interdependence in the subcontinent. While this process has found bipartisan political appeal, the ideas, resources and institutions to advance meaningful regional integration remain at a fragmentary level. Nothing underscores the meagre level of interdependence than the following stark statistics: merely 5% of South Asian trade is intra-regional; intra-regional investments constitute less than 1% of total investment in the subcontinent.

Although India and China are today seen as regional competitors, neither power has succeeded in implementing its vision fully. Arguably, the main reason has been the inability of both countries to situate their rival visions in a region-wide approach. India has not fully come to terms with the utter lack of intra-regional trading and infrastructure networks; nor has New Delhi been able to allocate adequate resources and capacities or adapt or renew institutions to match its aspirational rhetoric. Despite possessing far greater economic strength, and considering the scale and ambition of the BRI, China too has been unable to make a meaningful regional impact. Recent experience has proven that circumventing India – given its geopolitical centrality and market size – is not a viable path for any sustainable connectivity plan for the subcontinent.

Yet, unbridled competition poses grave risks for a fragmented subcontinent in the coming decades, a future that would undermine Indian interests far more than Chinese. Transforming South Asia must, therefore, be predicated on tapping India’s unique advantages: the size of its domestic market, which makes any geoeconomic plan’s success dependent on India’s participation and involvement, and the overt and subtle geopolitical influence the country continues to wield across the neighbourhood; it must also leverage China’s financial and industrial capabilities to construct infrastructure and connectivity capacities in the neighbourhood.

In short, both countries have strengths that are not being fully leveraged to advance an open subregional geoeconomic order. What has been missing from the policy discourse is an attempt to explore alternative futures and more constructive frameworks; there have been no attempts to visualize the changing regional setting in ways that would still secure vital Indian interests, advance stability and deepen regional economic development, while also enabling China to pursue its engagement with South Asia.

Intersection of Indian and Chinese Interests 

The first step in such an exercise would be to undertake a brief assessment of how Indian and Chinese interests interact in the region. What can we observe about China’s involvement in South Asia? China usually works with whatever regime is in power and avoids interfering in domestic political battles. Beijing’s main priority is protecting its economic investments. In some cases where China has deeper geostrategic interests, particularly in Pakistan and Myanmar, it has cushioned adverse reaction from the US towards these states. Hence, in limited ways, China is already a security provider – certainly at the political and diplomatic levels. And this factor shapes how many neighbourhood regimes now perceive China: as potential insurance against possible Western pressure and as a hedge against uncertainty about Indian positions in times of domestic crises in these states. There is little doubt that China’s engagement has improved the bargaining position of India’s neighbours vis-à-vis India and other major external powers.

India and China’s regional policies suggest that there are both overlapping features as well as geopolitical faultlines at play. Both neighbours have a common interest in (i) managing non-traditional threats such as terrorism, extremism, separatism and distress migration that impact regime stability of smaller South Asian states; (ii) promoting secular and stable regimes; (iii) promoting open sea lanes and ensuring the security of their maritime trade routes; and (iv) geoeconomically connecting South Asia with East Asia.

At the same time, there are some key differences in India and China’s regional approaches. First, China appears to be more interested in inter-regional interdependence and connectivity, while India is mainly interested in subregional integration. Put another way, China seeks to connect South Asia with China; while India seeks to bring South Asia closer from within as well as more connected with Eurasia and South East Asia. Second, there is a large measure of uncertainty about the geopolitical implications of the BRI in South Asia. India’s main concern is that deeper connectivity between India’s neighbours and China will reorient the foreign policies of South Asian states in ways that could eventually undermine Indian interests and challenge its claims to regional authority. More broadly, China’s engagement in South Asia might also adversely influence domestic politics in the subcontinent and strengthen anti-India political forces; the latter could spill over onto the domestic politics in India’s states, thereby impacting periphery security and social stability. Third, a major faultline would be the militarizing of China’s regional connectivity projects. Such a hypothetical scenario would pose military security challenges to India as well as place China in a position to act as a direct security provider in the subcontinent, an outcome that would have profound consequences for the geopolitics in the region.

Policy Recommendations 

One of the key geopolitical challenges for Asia over the next decade is whether and how a rising India and a rising China can learn to be sensitive to each other’s core interests while pursuing engagement with each other’s neighbours. In the April 2018 ‘informal summit’ in Wuhan, both political leaderships had sought to arrest the escalating tension and competition in the relationship. While their differences and disputes remain unresolved, both sides have come to recognize the costs and disadvantages of a semi-hostile and contentious relationship. In particular, building trust and ‘strategic communication’ in the neighbourhood have now been recognized by both leaderships as shared policy goals.

1. Capacity building and assisting weak states: Although India and China have a common interest in regime stability, both sides have yet to explore structured cooperation on this front. One form such cooperation could assume is joint assistance of weak states through coordinated capacity enhancing projects and training programmes. Indeed, the April 2018 talks have laid a framework for ‘India-China plus one’, that is, India-China cooperation in third countries in the region.² In October 2018, India and China launched a programme to train Afghan diplomats as an initial step in a long-term effort for trilateral cooperation (India-China-Afghanistan).³ This confidence-building measure, albeit modest, has opened a window for precisely the type of coordination between two regional powers that has often been ambivalent of their shared interests. Such third-party cooperation should be extended to other states confronting domestic challenges; for example, the two nations could together support Bangladesh’s secular forces in their struggle against extremism or assist Myanmar in responsibly managing domestic order.

2. Coordinating geoeconomic plans: Lacking in finance capital and industrial resources, India cannot undertake the sole burden of lifting South Asia from underdevelopment and low interdependence, especially given the growing domestic claims within the country itself. If Indian requirements in the subcontinent are to advance connectivity (both within and between South Asian states) and deepen the developmental process, China’s engagement can be nudged or leveraged in directions that also advance India’s long-term interests. Building constructive regional partnerships are unavoidable and China is one of the key players that need to be engaged more strategically by India.

Can China’s infrastructure projects increase South Asia’s internal connectivity and economic interdependence? Much of the viability of logistical networks and energy projects is linked with India’s economy and access to its large market. For example, hydropower projects developed by China with India as the main eventual market could be a form of trilateral cooperation. Another instance is China’s construction of a new terminal at the Chittagong port in Bangladesh, which complemented India-Bangladesh coastal shipping cooperation.⁴ Similarly, projects like the BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) corridor could reconcile India’s vision to deepen connectivity with its smaller neighbours with China’s vision to connect its southwestern provinces with South Asia.

More broadly, India-China geoeconomic coordination and cooperation, including through joint bilateral and multilateral projects, is necessary to avoid duplicating large infrastructure projects that could otherwise burden the region with excess supply-side capacities and fiscal burdens. India’s official position on the BRI (beyond the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that contradicts India’s sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir) is based on legitimate questions around sustainability, viability, transparency and industrial benefits to the local communities of some of China’s economic projects. India-China coordination in third countries could help in addressing these issues by giving India a say in the choice and design of projects, along with making China’s economic involvement more in sync with the subregional political economy as well as with established international norms. The second BRI forum held in Beijing in April 2019 indicates Chinese leaders might be responding to the critique from India and other countries. The communiqué called for ‘extensive consultation’; ‘green’, ‘people-centred and sustainable development’; and ‘high-quality, sustainable infrastructure’ that is ‘inclusive and broadly beneficial’.⁵ But for India to explore whether the BRI’s adaptation does genuinely augur a consultative and sustainable geoeconomic approach by China in the subcontinent, its own position on the initiative needs to evolve such that its legitimate sovereignty concerns do not constrain the formulation of a more sophisticated policy.

3. Maritime cooperation: In recent years, India has recognized China’s ‘Malacca dilemma’ – a reference to the long and insecure lines of communication through the northern Indian Ocean that China relies upon for much of its international trade – and its corresponding interest in improving the security of its Indian Ocean trade routes. China, for its part, too needs to reassure India on its port projects and the military aspects of its regional involvement, particularly in the South Asian littoral. Even as they recognize some of China’s maritime security concerns, Indian policymakers must be prepared to counteract any attempts at militarization or conversion of Chinese infrastructure investments in South Asia into forward-basing facilities for the Chinese military. A failure to do so might impel other great powers to respond to China with their own military bases on the subcontinent’s maritime periphery, a process that would pose adverse consequences for regional geopolitics and also erode India’s influence in the neighbourhood.

Competitive Coexistence in a Common Neighbourhood

India and China’s policies are beginning to resemble each other. Just as Beijing’s engagement with India’s neighbours increases the status and bargaining position of these smaller states vis-à-vis India, New Delhi too engages with many South East Asian states who seek to hedge their dependence on China by developing more economic and geopolitical options. Yet, neither side is under any delusion that India’s neighbours can be rallied against India or that India can rally South East Asian states to balance Chinese power. The balance of power simply would not allow such a thing in practice. The defence budget of the entire South East Asian region is about $45 billion. China’s is four times that figure and with far more modernized and balanced capabilities. Similarly, the asymmetry between India and its neighbours is even higher. In South Asia – with the exception of Pakistan – none of the other states are in any position to present a threat or challenge to India, even with outside assistance. This proposition is likely to be even truer over the course of the next five years.

If we look at the official rhetoric from the region, what stands out is a similar discourse being espoused by most of the smaller South Asian states. Nearly all of India’s neighbours have expressed a preference for (i) non-alignment or strategic autonomy as a guiding principle in their foreign relations; (ii) multi-directional economic engagement with India, China, the US, Japan and other powers; and (iii) sensitivity towards India including publicly disavowing any move towards offering military facilities or bases to external powers and thus reassuring India on its vital interests. As one recent study observed, smaller South Asian countries ‘largely still see India as the dominant power in South Asia, suggesting that Chinese economic activity, while welcome, will not necessarily translate into major military or strategic gains’.⁶ Another discernible trend is that neither India nor China seems to be pressuring or cajoling smaller South Asian states to make hard choices, or persuading these states to adopt postures and policies that run contrary to the main interests of its regional competitor.

In short, we do not see a Cold War-style competition, which suggests some sort of a tacit acceptance of competitive coexistence in their overlapping peripheries. So while India and China are competing they are doing so within a framework of self-restraint. This could gradually pave the way for a conception of a regional order with informal norms on the ‘rules of the game’ in the subcontinent. Other things being equal, internally resilient and economically vibrant neighbours are likely to be in both India and China’s interests. If stability in their overlapping peripheries is a common interest, it should pave the way for more sustained bilateral conversations to mitigate some of the uncertainty-induced competition and mistrust; these could also seek to proactively exploit the untapped overlapping interests likely to be emanating from China’s growing involvement in South Asia.

Far-sighted and pragmatic voices in the West are advocating for ‘stable competition’ or ‘responsible competition’ with a rising China to avoid precipitating a second and costly Cold War. Indian policymakers must take the long view and pursue an approach of peaceful competition in the neighbourhood. India and China need to engage in a strategic conversation on the subcontinent and its various parts towards coordinating some of their regional connectivity visions and policies. The failure to pursue such a dialogue, and to arrive an understanding on an agreed framework for Indian and Chinese policies, would constitute a recipe for regional instability and a costly zero-sum rivalry that neither country can afford in a rapidly changing international environment.

Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:

• The Future is Federal: Why Indian Foreign Policy Needs to Leverage its Border States by Nimmi Kurian
• Rethinking India’s Approach to International and Domestic Climate Policy by Navroz K Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani
• India’s Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World by Shyam Saran
• Need for a Comprehensive National Security Strategy by Shyam Saran
• A Clarion Call for Just Jobs: Addressing the Nation’s Employment Crisis by Sabina Dewan
• Time for Disruptive Foreign and National Security Policies by Bharat Karnad
• Multiply Urban ‘Growth Engines’, Encourage Migration to Reboot Economy by Mukta Naik
• Schooling is not Learning by Yamini Aiyar
• Clearing Our Air of Pollution: A Road Map for the Next Five Years by Santosh Harish, Shibani Ghosh and Navroz K Dubash
• Protecting Water while Providing Water to All: Need for Enabling Legislations by Philippe Cullet
• Interstate River Water Governance: Shift focus from conflict resolution to enabling cooperation by Srinivas Chokkakula

¹ Ministry of External Affairs, ‘Sino-India relations including Doklam, border situation and cooperation in international organizations’, Sixteenth Lok Sabha, 4 September 2018, 2-3.
² After the Wuhan meetings, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou had briefed the media on such trilateral cooperation: ‘The two sides will enhance policy coordination in their neighbourhood to discuss cooperation in the form of China India plus one or China India plus X.’ ‘Modi-Xi summit: India, China to step up policy coordination’, PTI, 29 April 2018.
³ ‘India, China launch joint training for Afghanistan, plan more projects’, Reuters,15 October 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-china-afghanistan/india-china-l….
⁴ Nilanthi Samaranayake, ‘China’s Engagement with Smaller South Asian Countries’, Special Report No. 446, April (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2019), 13.
⁵ Joint Communique of the Leaders’ Roundtable of the 2nd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, 27 April 2019. https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/qwyw/rdxw/88230.htm.
⁶ Samaranayake, ‘China’s Engagement with Smaller South Asian Countries’, 3-4.

Read the full working paper produced by the CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program on the dilutions made to the central law of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, over a period of two years.

Even though the fate of the amendments brought to the Act by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, through a series of ordinances, currently rests with the Joint Parliamentary Committee report, several states have already brought about changes through Rules under Section 109 of the Act.

This paper attempts to trace and analyse how the state governments have modified and built upon the central Act, and especially at how they have diluted the applicability of progressive clauses like consent, Social Impact Assessment (SIA), food security provisions, clear compensation related provisions, as well as clauses which allow for unused land to be returned to original owners.

Even as the Joint Parliamentary Committee’s report on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) is awaited, several states have already brought about changes that severely compromise the scope of clauses related to consent, Social Impact Assessment (SIA), food security and higher compensations. These changes also restrict the applicability of the 2013 law at state level.

States have executed these changes through Rules under Section 109 of the Act, or have enacted their own state level land acquisition legislations using Article 254(2) of the Constitution of India. States, which have exercised the latter option, have managed to override the provisions of the central law. In the present case this has meant doing away with the provisions of consent and Social Impact Assessment.

While ‘land’ is the subject matter of the State list, the ‘acquisition and requisitioning of property’ finds place in the Concurrent list of the Constitution. This implies that both the central and state governments have jurisdiction over the same. In such cases, state level rules need to be within the binds of the central law; as in the case of the RFCLARR, 2013. However, Article 254(2) allows for instances for states to override the central legislations provided they receive presidential assent.

The year 2013 saw the enactment of the RFCTLARR replacing the colonial 1894 law on land acquisition. This new law introduced several critical requirements such as SIA, consent from land-owners, increased rates of compensation, provisions related to return of unused lands and food security.

Several of these provisions would have been repealed had the amendments proposed in the Bhartiya Janata Party’s RFCTLARR Ordinance, 2014, been accepted. In response to mass scale protests by farmer’s organisations, political parties and objections by NGOs and researchers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government would not be pursuing these amendments. However, in the last three years several dilutions proposed in the Ordinance have found their way into state laws and Rules.

An examination of these legal changes reveals the following trends:

• At least six state governments have enacted their own land acquisition laws by seeking Presidential consent using Article 254 (2) of the constitution. This is based on suggestions of the NITI Ayog in 2015.
• These new state laws like the RFCTLARR (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 2016 directly adopt the amendments proposed by the 2014 land ordinance. With this the Gujarat state law manages to dispense the requirements for consent and SIA for a range of projects, including industrial corridors, infrastructure or those projects important for national interest, as was proposed in the Land Ordinance.

• States are also adopting the clauses of the NDA government’s 2014 land ordinance through the drafting of state rules, thereby attempting to ‘amend’ the central law. This is being done by dispensing with the requirement of specific processes or restricting the scope of the law. For instance, the process of conducting an SIA under the Uttar Pradesh Rules is much less comprehensive than the 2014 Central Rules.
• State level rules are diluting the applicability of progressive clauses like prior consent, public hearings or SIAs. In Jharkhand, the state rules reduce the quorum of the Gram Sabha consent to one-third from half as required in the central law.
• States are repatriating unused acquired land into land banks rather than returning it to the original owners as required by the central law. This is being done by Odisha and Jharkhand. The Tamil Nadu law allows unused land to be taken for any other purpose, provided the District Collector certifies the same.
• State Rules are reducing the amount of compensations to be paid against acquisitions. In states like Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Tripura, the multiplying factor for rural land is fixed at 1.00 as against 2.00 as specified in the central law.

A full table on these dilutions is also available in the occasional paper.

The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program had carried out a preliminary mapping of the dilutions and exclusions in a working paper in August 2016 (see here). The team has now updated this analysis to include several new developments.

Even though the Land Ordinance was not pursued, its provisions have already found their way in state level land acquisition processes. The final paper is available here and its executive summary here.

Hindi translation of this paper is available here.

Listen to the full audio (above) of the talk by  Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, Ankur Paliwal, and Bhasker Tripathy, where they present an analysis of 331 ongoing land conflicts in India which affect close to 36 lakh people and span over 10 lakhs hectares of land.

In this presentation, they address how, why, and where these conflicts are emerging and what are the implications of these conflicts for local communities and investment policies in India.

Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava writes on issues at the intersection of human rights, environment, industry and politics; Ankur Paliwal divides his time between coordinating Land Conflict Watch, and exploring stories about science, global health, gender and the environment;  Bhasker Tripathy covers and writes on the issues of rural development, agriculture, migration, women empowerment, and renewable energy.

On September 17, Suresh Prabhu (Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation), Jairam Ramesh (Member of Parliament), Narendra Taneja (National Spokesperson, BJP), and Dr Pramod Deo (former Chairman, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission) launched Mapping Power: The Political Economy of Electricity in India’s States at the India International Centre. The book was published by Oxford University Press, and edited by Navroz K Dubash (Professor, Centre for Policy Research), Sunila S Kale (Director, South Asia Centre at the University of Washington), and Ranjit Bharvirkar (Principal, Regulatory Assistance Project). The launch event was followed by a technical panel discussion with Professor D V Ramana (Professor, Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneshwar), Aditi Phadnis (Political Editor, Business Standard), and Shantanu Dixit, the Group Coordinator of Prayas (Energy Group).

Mapping Power provides the first comprehensive analysis of the politics of electricity distribution across fifteen Indian states. The book examines why, despite several decades of reform, India’s electricity sector remains marked by financial indebtedness and an inability to provide universal, high quality electricity for all. The volume’s fifteen chapters, written by scholars of politics and electricity, trace the power sector in states as diverse as Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Jharkhand. Through these state narratives, the authors argue that attempts to depoliticise electricity reforms are misplaced. ‘Electricity reforms will only succeed if they provide greater political payoffs than the status quo,’ said Navroz K Dubash. At the launch event, Jairam Ramesh agreed that electricity reforms were inherently political decisions. ‘Power sector reforms are less a technocratic process and more a political process,’ said Jairam Ramesh. ‘You cannot have a cookie-cutter approach to power sector reforms in which you treat all states as identical cases.’

So how do we ensure simultaneous electoral and electricity gains? The book suggests that answering this question begins with a thorough analysis of state-specific politics. ‘The politics of electricity varies in each state,’ said Sunila S Kale. ‘For example, electricity politics may be driven by subsidy and quality of service in Delhi, procurement politics in Jharkhand, and the balance of farmer and industrial interests in Maharashtra.’ Understanding the political factors that drive the sector, the editors suggest, will allow state-specific linkages between electoral gains and electricity reforms.

While the centre always has a role to play, one important function is to create financial space for state-level reforms. ‘UDAY can be useful in creating breathing room for manoeuvre,’ said Ranjit Bharvirkar, ‘but that space has to be used to change underlying conditions that cause political pressures, not just kick the can down the road.’ Commenting on another centre-led initiative, the separation of carriage and content in the proposed Electricity Act amendment, Dr Pramod Deo remarked, ‘The new amendment brings up the same problems. No chief minister is going to give away control of a Rs. 65,000 crore utility.’

At the launch event, the speakers discussed the importance of decentralised electricity distribution systems. ‘As Indians, we need to re-work the entire architecture of the energy sector, said Narendra Taneja. ‘It’s fundamentally flawed. We need something decentralised, and better regulated, where economic fundamentals are respected and at the same time, consumers participate in it.’ The panelists also recognised the need to increase both domestic and industrial rates of electricity consumption. ‘We’re chasing gigawatts, when we ought to be chasing kilowatts,’ said Jairam Ramesh and continued, ‘What will ultimately help in increasing per capita consumption of electricity will be chasing the kilowatts.’ Narendra Taneja described decentralisation as a means to increase consumer participation across the grid. ‘We need to set up lakhs of solar republics in India – republics with their own regulation, their own tariffs. The only way forward is if we decentralise,’ said Taneja. ‘Let the Kanpur tariff rate be completely different from that of Lucknow or Agra.’

The video of the second panel discussion can be accessed here.

‘Mapping Power: The Political Economy of Electricity in India’s States’ is available for purchase online here, and more details about the Mapping Power Project can be accessed here. The editors have also published an op-ed in the Hindustan Times called ‘Reform in the electricity sector is all about getting the politics right,’ which can be accessed here. Links to the remaining op-eds are given below.

Op-Eds in the Mapping Power Series:

• Reform is All About Getting the Politics Right
• How to Reform Uttar Pradesh’s Troubled Power Sector
• Consumers Upfront in Tale of Two Reforms in Andhra
• Taking Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
• Karnataka’s Power Politics
• AAP and the Politics of Power in Delhi
• New Trends Demand New Strategies in Maharashtra
• The Story Behind Uttarakhand’s A+ Performing Discom
• Electricity Distribution in Gujarat: A Sustainable Energy Future Roadmap?
• Small Gains Behind Mounting Losses in Jharkhand
• The Saga of the Subsidy Trap in the Tamil Nadu Power Sector
• Power Politics at Play

In 2013, a young political party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), led by Arvind Kejriwal, charted a course to one of the most significant electoral upsets in Indian political history. A substantial plank of AAP’s successful election campaigns in 2013 and 2015, as seen in its manifesto, is the emphasis on making electricity and water affordable to the common man. Interestingly, power sector reforms had been key to sustained electoral victories by Kejriwal’s predecessor, Sheila Dixit of the Congress Party, over the three previous legislative assembly elections as well. During Dixit’s period in power from 1998-2013, the focus was on improving the quality of power supply in Delhi through privatisation of the electricity distribution sector. AAP’s election campaign questioned the success of this privatisation model by alleging financial irregularities by distribution companies (discoms) as well as collusion between the Congress government and the discoms to keep tariffs artificially high.

Since coming to power in 2014, the AAP has sought to translate its political vision of affordable basic needs into reality in at least two ways. First, the AAP provided a flat 50% subsidy on power consumption below 400 units for domestic consumers. While consistent with its political agenda, the subsidy has been criticized on a few grounds.  In particular, the power subsidy is so broad-based that, on an average, over 80% of Delhi homes benefit from it. Moreover, as a Brookings India study notes, given that the upper limit of 400 units is quite high, wealthier households consuming more power receive more in subsidy than do poorer households. In May 2018, the subsidy scheme was revised to steer greater subsidy toward lower consuming, and therefore, presumably less affluent households, by offering an additional subsidy of Rs 100 for consumers with a monthly consumption under 100 units. However, concerns regarding benefits being claimed by middle and high income households persist.

The subsidy scheme also throws up new challenges to management of discoms. Since the subsidy is paid by the government, any delays in transfers to the discoms has a cascading effect on the sector, as the discoms also delay payment to generating companies, resulting in an additional financial burden of late payment charges. In the absence of a significant tariff hike since 2014, the additional consideration of delayed subsidy payments from the government could adversely impact the discoms’ financial health.

A second consumer-friendly move spearheaded by AAP is the proposed imposition of penalties on discoms for unscheduled power outages. This effort has run afoul of the larger political context in Delhi, one shaped by a struggle for authority between the elected government and the Lieutenant Governor (LG).  AAP had originally mooted this idea in 2015 but the Delhi High Court had struck down the scheme as it had not been approved by the LG. Earlier this year, the LG approved this scheme, however, it will come into effect only upon notification by the state regulatory agency – the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC). This would require an amendment to the existing DERC (Supply Code and Performance Standards) Regulations, 2017, which already sets out timelines for resolution and compensation payable to consumers by discoms on account of various defaults including meter complaints and power supply failure. While the government has proposed a penalty of Rs 50 per hour for the first two hours and Rs. 100 for each subsequent hour of unscheduled power outage, payable by discoms to consumers, the existing DERC regulations are more nuanced as they account for seven categories of power supply failures and a differential timeline for resolution of defaults, ranging from two to twelve hours, within certain categories depending upon the percentage of the aggregate technical and commercial losses in a particular zone. Therefore, it is unclear if the government’s scheme is in fact an improvement on the existing regulations.

The AAP’s moves in the Delhi electricity sector illustrate the challenges of implementing a political vision in the sector without crossing over into pure populist policies that also undermine the financial health of the sector. For instance, the government needs to consider the scope of the existing electricity subsidy – who are the intended beneficiaries? In what way can the scheme be targeted to ensure that benefits are passed on only to the intended beneficiaries? In the context of the proposal to impose penalties on discoms for power outages, the government should be cognisant of stepping into a purely regulatory sphere and answer why changes to the existing regulations are required to begin with. Further, in both schemes, consumer interests are at the forefront but allaying concerns of the distribution companies is key to long term sectoral sustainability.

In Delhi, while issues in the power sector have resonated with the electorate and their concerns have been amplified by political parties, finding the balance between political goals, financial viability and institutional constraints continues to be a challenge.

Megha Kaladharan is a lawyer working on regulatory and policy challenges in the Indian electricity sector at Trilegal, an Indian law firm. This research is based on work presented in full in the book Mapping Power, edited by Navroz K Dubash, Sunila S Kale, and Ranjit Bharvirkar.

Op-Eds in the Mapping Power Series

• Reform is All About Getting the Politics Right
• How to Reform Uttar Pradesh’s Troubled Power Sector
• Consumers Upfront in Tale of Two Reforms in Andhra
• Taking Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
• Karnataka’s Power Politics
• New Trends Demand New Strategies in Maharashtra
• The Story Behind Uttarakhand’s A+ Performing Discom
• Electricity Distribution in Gujarat: A Sustainable Energy Future Roadmap?
• Small Gains Behind Mounting Losses in Jharkhand
• Power Politics at Play
• The Saga of the Subsidy Trap in the Tamil Nadu Power Sector

More details about the Mapping Power Project can be accessed here.